ATLANTA — A trial that used behaviorally designed gamification and financial incentives or a combination of both to get people at cardiovascular risk to be more active demonstrated a significant increase in daily step counts.
The BE ACTIVE trial enrolled 1062 adults with clinical atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease or a heightened 10-year risk for myocardial infarction, stroke, or cardiovascular disease and showed that participants in all four arms, including controls, increased their daily step counts over 18 months.
However, participants given financial incentives or gaming points — or both — had more robust results, Alexander C. Fanaroff, MD, MHS, an assistant professor and interventional cardiologist at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia reported at the American College of Cardiology (ACC) meeting. The results were published online simultaneously in Circulation.
The researchers say this is the largest and longest duration trial of interventions to increase physical activity.
“For someone taking about 5000 steps per day, an increase by 1700 steps would be associated with an increase in life expectancy by about 1.2 years,” Fanaroff told…
